


Half Forgotten Memories

by PhDelicious



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), Leverage, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton is Aaron Cross, F/M, SHIELD, implied Aaron Cross/Marta Shearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhDelicious/pseuds/PhDelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's only so much Natasha can do when Clint Barton becomes Aaron Cross</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Forgotten Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Telaryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/gifts).



> Thank you to athena4lynn for a lovely beta. There are wallpapers and icons to go with this fic [here](http://be-compromised.livejournal.com/214786.html).

She isn’t supposed to know anything about Clint’s solo missions and normally she doesn’t care to go digging for more information than he’s willing to give. He's promised to tell her if they ever involve the Red Room and she believes him. Besides, what does it matter if he still has active contacts at the IMF or if he occasionally drops by a specific NYPD precinct? 

This is different. 

If Fury thinks she will just sit by as SHIELD wipes her partner’s mind (using techniques they learned while deprogramming her), strings him out on drugs and sends him out without back-up or a clear line of sight, then he doesn’t know her very well. Everyone has heard of Jason Bourne and its clear that the only reason SHIELD would be involved at this level is that WSC is scrambling to cover its ass over some sort of involvement. Despite all official agency statements to the contrary, everyone seems to know what is going on and most agents are jealous of the fact that Clint gets to be involved. What Natasha wants isn’t a piece of the pie. This comes much too close to her truth for her to want to be involved, but if it means Clint will come home then she will do what she can.

She expects Coulson to ask questions when she hands him a leave request timed to the start of Clint’s new assignment. As their handler, he should have a very good idea what she has planned. But he says nothing as he turns to place the paperwork in its proper folder.

“Was there anything else you needed Agent?” he asks as he turns back to Natasha. He taps a finger idly on a case folder sitting on his desk as he awaits her response. 

Phil isn’t one for random movements and Natasha’s eyes are drawn to the folder’s exposed ID number. She inclines her head, knowing that this is more help than he should be giving her.

“No, sir. That’s all,” she says and turns for the door. She stops by a random desk on her way out of the area and downloads the casefile onto her phone using Clint’s login. Eventually someone might notice and flag it as an irregular occurrence - Clint generally amuses himself by using Coulson's computer and he isn't supposed to be on base currently - but IT is always behind and if Coulson is willing to share he would have made sure there’d be no immediate warnings.

She checks the file as she packs. It’s almost singularly unhelpful except for a single name and starting location:

Marta Shearing, Virginia

~~

Natasha expects it to be hard to keep the right distance between herself and her target. Balancing being close enough to help with being far enough away that Aaron Cross doesn’t notice her separately from the rest of their pursuers. If her experience is anything to judge by Aaron might have retained some of Clint’s skills at picking her out in a crowd but not Clint's knowledge that she can be trusted. Its a tactical problem, a professional problem, something she is used to calculating. She doesn’t expect the distance to break her heart as well. 

In the three years since Clint brought her in, they’ve worked together more than they have separately and he’s become hers in a way only one person has ever approached before. He is her trust and her anchor. Watching the stranger in Clint’s body struggle to keep his sanity, to find his constant, is painful in a way she had sworn never to feel again. There is no rational reason that watching two strangers (Aaron is not Clint; Clint will not remember Aaron if SHIELD has done their job right) tumble into a relationship should do this to her. But rational is apparently not how she feels about Clint.

Still, she trails them to help when she can and she draws the CIA far enough off the trail to give them breathing room more than once. But without SHIELD’s resources all she can do is react and it quickly becomes clear that that won’t be enough.

By the time everyone arrives in Manila Natasha is ready to admit she needs help. She lifts a burner phone from a vendor’s stall and dials a number Clint made her memorize about the time she realized that she had stopped making contingency plans for his eventual betrayal. He'd told her to use it if she ever needed help that she couldn't ask him, SHIELD, or her own contacts for, though he’d never told her who to expect on the other end. When it goes to voicemail all her message says is, “The hawk’s wings have been clipped.”

She’d laughed at him when he’d given her the code, but now she just hopes it works.

~~

Eliot’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He’s tempted to ignore it as he’s in the middle of a job, but he knows its going to keep buzzing at intervals until he checks it and right now his team is still getting into position. 

The pop-up startles him for a moment. He vaguely remembers asking Hardison to set this up, but of all of his old contact numbers this was the one he least expected to be used. Only five people have ever had the number and as far as he knows they’re all dead. 

Nate’s voice gives the signal over the comms and Eliot pockets the phone. Right now keeping his team alive is more important than chasing ghosts.

~~

He almost forgets later, but the notification is still there when he goes to set his phone aside before regrouping with the team at the bar. The code in the voicemail is an SOS from a man he owes his life to, even if it is a woman’s voice on the phone, so he brings the phone with him.

“Hardison,” he calls, winding his way through the evening crush to their usual table, “I need you to run down a number from a voicemail.” 

They take the back stairs up to Nate’s and Hardison starts to work his magic on the computers. Within a couple minutes he read out a number. Eliot has no idea how Alec does what he does, but he’s come to appreciate having him around, most of the time.

When he dials the number the woman answers with a stilted, “Hello?”

“William James died 8 years ago.” Eliot can hear the uncertainty in her pause, feel her weighing her words, and sees the large screen on the far wall start to pull up data as Alec goes back to work. One screen is tracing the call. Another is being populated with service records. Maybe he should have done this somewhere else, but Eliot has a feeling that whatever this phone call is about he isn’t going to be able to handle it alone.

“Only according to the Army,” is all she says in the end.

Eliot sighs. Cryptic phone calls about not quite dead people only mean one thing in his experience: spies. He’s been approached by recruiters a couple times, but if he’s barely subtle enough for this team, he’s certainly not subtle enough for espionage. Still, he isn’t sure how much to trust this unknown woman.

“Where are you?” he asks. If she lies about something as simple as this he’ll have no choice but to terminate the call. Hardison’s trace is almost done and she called him.

“Manila.” It’s close enough to what is showing on the screen across the room.

“What do you need?”

“Information on the people trying to shut down Project Outcome.”

“Project Outcome,” he repeats for Hardison’s benefit before asking, “how should I contact you?”

“You can use this number.” Her answers are becoming increasingly clipped and he can tell something is going on which will need her full attention shortly. 

“Contact will be in 6 hours.” He turns his back on the room and whispers, “What do I call you?”

There is another pause and he can hear gunshots and running footsteps in the background. 

“I am the Black Widow,” she says and hangs up.

Eliot stares at his phone for a moment before slipping it into his pocket and giving in to the urge to curse. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, thumping his head on the wall and gathering his thoughts. He’s been out of the game for a while, but he knows the reputation that goes with that name. Whoever James really is, whatever he’s gotten himself into, the situation is even worse than he was imagining. If The Widow is struggling to keep James alive Eliot isn’t sure how much he can help. 

When he turns back to Hardison’s screens and sees the whole team waiting he thinks that maybe they have a chance. Time to steal a spy.

~~

After its over, when Aaron and Marta escape, she doesn’t follow them. It’s Coulson’s job to track them down and recover Clint. Instead she takes the rest of the information the voice on the phone gave her and goes hunting. As she tracks down disavowed WSC members she can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t part of Fury’s plan all along. He maintains deniability but the job gets done.

Its a safe thought - contemplating the machinations and manipulations of SHIELD’s director - in a way thinking about what happens next with her partner isn’t. She doesn’t know how much he’ll remember. She’s never remembered all of an implanted life, just bits and pieces in dreams and random knowledge in conversations that she never quite sure when she learned. But the Red Room had a lot more practice than SHIELD did. She can’t guess at how much Aaron will change Clint, but she knows he has changed her in ways that will be hard to hide. 

She considers not returning to SHIELD, to their partnership. She's been emotionally compromised, a weakness which is a danger to all those around her, but she isn’t a child and she has too much to do that SHIELD can help with. She is more effective with him guarding her back. She’s lost partners before and she’d rather lose Clint to a half remembered love than to death no matter how it tears at her. She'll be there waiting when Coulson brings him home and she'll see him through the aftermath of his deprogramming, whatever it brings, because this part of her debt she knows how to repay.


End file.
